RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

June 2, 2003
CHILD CAR SEATS ADVICE – IS IT GOOD OR BAD?

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents is seeking parents’ views on the help and advice they have received on fitting child car seats.

The Society want to hear if people felt assistance was easy to find and if the information they were given was good or bad.

Surveys have shown consistently poor use of child car restraints with around 70 per cent of them being fitted incorrectly.

Karen Charles, RoSPA Road Safety Project Officer, said: “We know that many parents find it very difficult to choose the correct seat and are often uncertain if they are fitting it properly.

“They need to seek expert advice, but that advice is not always readily available. As a result, seats may be fitted in such a way that they will not fully protect a child in a crash.”

RoSPA’s aim is to identify the places where good advice is available in the UK or abroad and the best methods that are used to provide that information. It will then publish the results so that people know where to go for help and those wanting to set up an advice service will know the best examples to follow.

Organisations already running such schemes are asked to tell RoSPA about how they work.

Some examples of where advice is available can be found on www.childcarseats.org.uk